Value enhancement, the challenge

AFTER the elation over the elevation of Tamil to the status of "classical language", the academic community in Tamil Nadu is down to discussing how best to use this to promote Tamil studies across the globe. One such "brainstorming discussion" was held at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in Chennai on October 6 at the initiative of its Chairman, M. Anandakrishnan. The participants included writers, linguists and historians.

Briefing Frontline on the discussions, Anandakrishnan said the consensus was that the announcement should be followed up with codification if there is to be an enhancement of the status of the ancient language and to avoid controversies among other Indian languages. He pointed to the doubt raised by former Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi as to how a living language could be declared a "classical language".

The code may be in the form of an Act or a statement in Parliament, which would spell out the attributes of a classical language. Anandakrishnan said: "The code must state that a language need not necessarily be out of circulation to be declared classical, or that even a living language can qualify to be declared classical, provided, for instance, it was born at least 2,000 years or 2,500 years ago."

To enhance the status of Tamil, he said, many more things need to be done. "For instance, the need for UNESCO to recognise Tamil as a classical language. Such recognition may lead to more universities abroad initiating steps to start Tamil studies and thereby further enhance the status of Tamil." This, he added, would be possible only if the government followed up its announcement by formulating a detailed code.

According to him, a second aspect is the "value enhancement" that the classical status may bring to Tamil. "Actually, everybody must make efforts to contribute to enhancing the value of the language. Value enhancement, and to some extent the status enhancement, must come through societal efforts. We cannot depend on governments alone. The government can at best issue a code and provide funds, or ask the University Grants Commission or some Union Ministry to extend assistance."

Referring to the state of Tamil learning in schools, the educationist said: "We must make provision for everyone to learn his or her mother tongue. Some kind of effort to force or persuade everybody in schools in Tamil Nadu to learn Tamil is needed to enhance the value of Tamil." Countries such as France and Sweden have ensured the right to learn the mother tongue, he pointed out.

The third aspect concerns the preservation of Tamil's assets, both linguistic and literary. He said: "Tamil's assets are not only Purananooru, Agananooru and Thirukkural, but also everything, not only in literature but also in other fields such as art and culture, which have come up to this point. For instance, newspapers such as Kudiarasu and Dravida Nadu [both of the Dravidian movement], Swadesamitran [a nationalist daily] and Thamizhnadu, all of them defunct, are also assets of the language. We have a long tradition of assets in literary works, books on varied subjects, including science, newspapers, journals and so on."

"What are we going to do to preserve these assets?" he asked and pointed out that the "National Library, Kolkata, has started cataloguing Tamil collections." Such concerted efforts were needed to preserve Tamil's assets. "Then, there is not even a bibliography of Tamil publications, leave alone annotative bibliographies. We have also to bring new forms of dictionaries, subject-specific dictionaries," Anandakrishnan said.

He referred to the areas in which the use of Tamil can be promoted. "For instance, providing search engines on the Internet. These are also value additions to our assets," he said. Although some effort had been made to digitise literary works, very little had been done in this respect. "We have been talking of the need to preserve our literary assets, but there has not been a concerted, visible effort," he said, citing the case of preservation of manuscripts. "A participant at the discussion cautioned that if we do not do anything in this regard within the next five years, we would lose huge amounts of these valuable assets for ever. Technology could do much to help preserve these assets and bring new products," he said.

The poor condition of many libraries, particularly the Maramalai Adigal Library in Chennai, was also highlighted during the discussion. Anandakrishnan said: "If the language is to be protected, mere status enhancement will not do; the value of assets also must be enhanced. They must be made performing assets," It was also felt that Tamil should be developed into a commercial language to serve the needs of the modern times.

Evolving new teaching methods and learning processes in Tamil in tune with the expanding needs, particularly in other States and other countries, was also identified as a challenge before the language experts. "Teaching Tamil as a classical language to those for whom Tamil is not the mother tongue calls for special efforts. There are different dimensions to learning Tamil, by people, whose mother tongue is not Tamil. Among them are those who want to look at Tamil or Tamil Nadu from the archaeological, historical and cultural perspectives, study subjects relating to dance, music and so on. So this area deserves attention."

The standard of teaching in such cases gained importance, Anandakrishnan observed. "In the United States, there have been good joint efforts by the Classical League and the Philological Association. They have evolved standards for classical language teaching," he said. "Under the Goals 2000 Education America Act, each school is required to teach two foreign languages, including a classical language. As a result half a million students in the United States learn Latin in schools. They look upon this simply not as a learning exercise. When you learn a foreign language, it is not merely for the sake of learning. You enhance your capacity to deal with your own language. This is very apt in the Indian context. We should at least evolve guidelines, leave alone prescribing standards for teaching Tamil to such motivated learners."